MOST anglers would be delighted to catch just one personal best each spring, so imagine Joe Millar’s delight when he landed three of them in one spectacular session.
The all-rounder was on a tench fishing trip to a gravel pit in his home county of Kent when he banked not only a new best for his target species, but also a monster 7lb 1oz eel and a huge carp, both of which were also comfortably new PBs.
Joe (30), who works as a drayman, revealed to us how the big-fish extravaganza unfolded.
“I had a lot of maggots with me, both live and dead, and on the second night I decided to spod out a good hit of deads and bait up an area to try for a decent eel, as the tench weren’t feeding in darkness,” he said.
“I took off the size 14 hook I was using for tench and replaced it with a size 10, before cramming about six maggots on to it.
“The baiting up clearly worked because inside the first hour of darkness I had 10 eels to a best of 2lb 12oz. It went crazy – they were taking the bait instantly. On the 11th bite, however, I could tell that I was connected to a different stamp of eel altogether. It stayed deep and gave a really dogged fight, but I was still shocked when I saw the size of it.”
In the same action-packed session Joe landed 38 tench between 4lb and 8lb 13oz, the latter being a new personal best, and the haul also included a new PB male tench weighing 7lb 3oz.
And just for good measure, he slipped his net under a 35lb 8oz carp.
“I put the carp rods out at night with boilie hookbaits, but in the end it was the same maggot rig on one of the tench rods that it took a fancy to! It beat my old carp PB by over 3lb and capped a session that I’ll probably struggle to ever beat!” Joe added.
